E-Paper
State gets HC notice on plea challenging appointment of IK Gujral varsity V-C
Acting on the plea from lawyer HC Arora, the high court bench of justice Vinod S Bhardwaj has sought response by February 12 from the V-C and departments concerned of the state governments.
The Punjab and Haryana high court has issued a notice to the Punjab government on a plea challenging appointment of Sushil Kumar Mittal, appointed as the vice-chancellor of the IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar, in June.
Acting on the plea from lawyer HC Arora, the high court bench of justice Vinod S Bhardwaj has sought response by February 12 from the V-C and departments concerned of the state governments.
The plea seeks removal of Mittal alleging that it was in gross violation of the provisions contained in the UGC regulations-2018. As per the chancellor’s noting on the file containing proceedings of search-cum-selection committee, the members of the committee “were not the persons of eminence in the sphere of higher education”. The committee considered the candidature of various candidates for the post of the V-C but did not inform the UGC and thus the representative of the UGC could not participate in the meeting, the plea claims adding that this fact was disclosed by the Punjab governor, who is also the chancellor of the university.
It further claims that the committee recommended Mittal’s name in a “casual manner”, and no mention was made therein regarding the parameters or the criterion for evaluating the comparative merit of candidates. As per Arora, when these contentions were raised before the court, the university and the state had sought time to file a status report but failed to do so on September 28, October 19 and on November 28 as well. In view of this, the high court on Wednesday issued a notice of motion in the matter. The petition was first taken up on August 3.
